Was this what freedom felt like?
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Description: Katniss practices the night before the Games. (based from movie version)


**Disclaimer: Hunger Games isn't mine but I enjoyed it enough to write for it now. I have only seen the two movies and have not read the books, so this is based solely from that. **

**Description: Katniss practices the night before the Games.**

**Was this what freedom felt like?**

**By miyamoto yui**

"You know…

The only reason was that you wanted to justify the fear."

She took a deep breath. Her whole mouth relaxed, and it was then that she realized that she had clenched her teeth throughout the dream. There was a dull hardness as she closed her mouth. She stared up at the cobalt blue darkness and felt the hot tears running from the sides of her eyes.

Shamefully, the tears kept on falling. She tried to wipe them away with her sleeve, but they wouldn't stop and she couldn't understand why.

Her heart beat faster and faster as she slowly sat up in the bed, looking around distraught. She gulped and walked out the room and into the living room. As she stood near the window, she heard the muffled shouts of the people waiting below. Yet, she couldn't understand why they were so excited to see the live executions that were to take place as 'games'.

She thought of the television screen where she flicked the channels and found a forest that reminded her of home.

**Did everyone have those channels here?**

**Did they see all these televised illusions and pretended it was enough to just see these beautiful things? That they didn't have to smell the dew from the green leaves or touch the moistness from the bark of the trees? **

**Was this called life to those people down there?**

It seemed all too absurd to think that there really were people who could exist and never question anything.

Zombies with bodies fully alive, minds already dead, willingly wanting to waste away in idleness.

**And yet, they thought we were the ones that were starving for their riches.**

Katniss took a deep breath and looked away from the window. She went to an empty part of the room and pretended to be holding her bow.

Emptying her mind, she moved left, right, up, down, turn, repeat. Walking slowly in place, she pointed her arms towards the left, then the right. Her mind's eye saw the branches with the squirrels holding acorns and down at the rabbit that sprinted into the distance. Suddenly, she turned and squinted her eyes to concentrate towards the few fawn that remained in the district.

Over and over, she kept on practicing until it became a meditation. Her legs moved quickly as her hips kept their center of gravity and her back tightened. Her fingers pulled over and over on the imaginary string and let it go. She moved until she could feel her sides ache just a little.

**I am not fast enough.**

As always, Katniss felt warm and alive as she put her whole mind and body into concentrating on her goal: Hunt with your whole self or you lose everything.

It wasn't that she wanted to see the blood flow away or when their eyes stared to the sky, but everywhere else, she had to be as hard as a rock, unmoved by her mother's misery or her sister's sudden screaming in the middle of the night, "I'm next!"

In the woods, she could breathe, her whole body reacting to the leaves, the sunlight, the dirt, the trees, the animals that ran away from her.

**I could pretend that the fear wasn't going to eat me alive.**

**I could imagine what District 12 must have been like before it was all fenced up.**

**I could feel human.**

**Was this what freedom felt like?**

Her sweat poured down to the carpeted floor. Katniss breathed heavily as she went back to the large, clear window, looking out to the thousands that crazily still stood there at this unreasonable hour where in her district, everyone would surely be sleeping in preparation for tomorrow's work, everyday like the last and knowing that the next would be the same.

Finally, she looked at her own reflection. She watched her own lips say, "You know…The only reason was that you wanted to justify the fear."

Her heart felt like bursting as she thought of her dream: Her future self looking down at her sleeping self and telling her what she didn't want to hear.

There was a part of her that knew she hadn't volunteered entirely because of Prim.

**I wanted to keep the little of me that was left inside here.**

**Owari./The End.**

**Author's note:** I don't know why, but I suddenly felt like writing this in the middle of the night. It bugged me until I couldn't fall asleep.

Though it reminds me of Battle Royale, I have to say, I rather liked this movie, but I wish that Katniss' character was fleshed out more. However, there is something that still charms me about her even if she can go to extremes (rock hard or vulnerable from the fear).

I don't know where this came from, but I am glad it is out of my system.

Love,

Yui

12/30/2013 5:04:53 AM


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